UNHAPPY JOHNSTOWN

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 25.

UNHAPPY JOHNSTOWN.

ONE of the physicians on the spot writes thus to the Medical News of Philadelphia concerning the great disaster at Johnstown:—

The mental condition of almost every former resident of Johnstown is one of the gravest character, and the reaction which will set in when the reality of the whole affair is fully comprehended can scarcely fail to produce many cases of permanent or temporary insanity. Most of the faces that one meets, both male and female, are those of the most profound melancholia, associated with an almost absolute disregard for the future. The nervous system shows the strain it has borne by a tremulousness of the hand and of the lip, in man as well as in woman. This nervous state is further evidenced by a peculiar intonation of words, the persons speaking mechanically, while the voices of many rough-looking men are changed into such tremulous notes of so high a pitch as to make one imagine that a child on the verge of tears is speaking. Crying is so rare that your correspondent saw not a tear on any face in Johnstown, but the women that are left are haggard, with pinched features, and heavy, dark lines under the eyes. Indeed, the evidence of systematic disturbance is so marked in almost every individual who was present at the time of the catastrophe, that it is possible with the eye alone to separate the residents from those outside.